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String Quartet #12

Appleby Catalogue W number: 
W496

The 12th String Quartet was written in 1950 at Memorial Hospital in New York, where Villa-Lobos was hospitalized at the time.  It was dedicated to Mindinha.

Movements:

  1. Allegro
  2. Andante Melancolico
  3. Allegretto leggiero - legeiro
  4. Allegro - bem ritmado

From Ralph Gustafson's "Villa-Lobos and the Man-Eating Flower", p. 11:

"Arminda served cups of strong, black coffee. In the midst of one scramble, Villa-Lobos told me that his Twelfth Quartet was finished. He composed at a collapsible card-table with a cigar in his mouth. "Richness from the heart always," he said, "The experience, through the man himself, then onto paper!""

 Thesis: PERFORMANCE ASPECTS OF STRING QUARTETS NUMBER 12, 13 AND 14 BY HEITOR VILLA-LOBOS

Year Composed: 

1950

Category: 
Chamber Music
Instrumentation: 

String Quartet

Scores: 

Published by Assocated Music Publishers, New York.

Recordings: 

You can listen to the Bessler-Reis Quartet playing Quartets 12, 13, & 14, streamed on the Internet on this page of the Radio UOL website.

Performances: 

The premiere performance was by the Quarteto Haydn de Sao Paulo, on September 11, 1951.

There are two records in the Villa-Lobos Concerts database for this String Quartet as of August 2009.